Almost £100 million has been spent so far by the borough council on brightening up Woking town centre, but it has not yet found a machine capable of cleaning its new street surface.

The tiles in Jubilee Square and Commercial Way appear to be an attractive aspect of the redeveloped area, but cleaning the smooth, non-slippery surface has proved far from as easy as walking on it.

And almost two-and-a-half years after the revamped Jubilee Square was unveiled, teams from the council contractor Serco are still having to go round using semi-manual scrubbers.

The frequency of cleaning has been increased to keep the tiles clean, but the long search to find a machine capable of doing the job without damaging the surface has not been successful.

By last year, the cost of this search had reached £6,000.

There were a few dissatisfied faces among councillors when Geoff McManus, the Woking Borough Council’s neighbourhood services manager, updated this month’s Woking Joint Committee on attempts to find a vehicle solution.

“We have not found that automated machine,” Mr McManus admitted. “We will continue the search.”